Telecommunication networks, e.g. as illustrated in FIG. 1, typically consist of a large number of network units responsible for providing communication services to and from user equipments connected to said network. The coverage area of the radio base stations thereby constitutes the geographical area that can be served by such a network, whereby the placement of radio base stations depends on many factors, e.g. the shape of geographical area, traffic density, etc.
In order to guarantee a proper working of the network but also for improving service range and service quality in the network, it is necessary to perform, e.g. regularly or at suitable instances, various maintenance tasks in the network units. This implies inter alia software maintenance and upgrades but also error corrections or fine-tuning of parameters for improved network performance. It is thus necessary to take network units out of service during such maintenance which implies, in particular with regard to the radio base stations, that a certain geographical area will have no or reduced radio coverage during the maintenance time. This locally reduced network performance will also impact neighbouring radio base stations.
It is perceived to be a problem that networks at regular times will have reduced coverage and experience increased radio traffic disturbances.
Handling the impact of such problems needs either planning of the maintenance activities by the network operator or needs already be taken into consideration in advance when designing the network. For instance, the network operator can apply a randomised scheme or individually trigger according to a planned sequence radio base stations that are temporarily out of order for maintenance activity. However, these measures only can lead to a reduced impact of maintenance activities which is, e.g. in case of a randomised scheme, not entirely under the control of the network operator.
Known solutions of network management services refer to distributed and policy-based procedures with self-configuration capabilities where the network entities in the system can be seen as a potential manager for a set of local (re-)configuration tasks.